The Trump administration's billionaires are worth more than $450 billion. Here's who they are
William Gavin
Updated 8 min read
President-elect Donald Trump likes to surround himself with people he trusts — friends and allies — and people who win.
During his first term in office, that meant establishing the richest cabinet in U.S. history, with a collective net worth of $11 billion, CBS News reported in 2016. Now, his group of appointees and nominations, both inside and outside cabinet positions, are worth many times that. Just one of his chosen confidants is worth about 40 times that net worth alone.
The exact net worth of many of Trump’s appointees are unknown, given their private array of interests. At least one’s net worth — that of Massad Boulos, Tiffany Trump’s father-in-law and incoming Middle East advisor — has been called into question.
But others’ wealth is more clearly defined. Here are the billionaires — and some multi-millionaires — that are joining Trump’s second administration.
Frank Bisnano is the CEO of the financial tech firm Fiserv and Trump’s pick to lead the Social Security Administration.
Bisnano’s wealth mostly comes from his ownership of $625 million worth of Fiserv stock and his executive compensation. In 2017, Bisnano was listed as the second-highest-paid chief executive in the country as the leader of First Data Corporation, which later merged with Fiserv. Before becoming First Data’s CEO and chairman, he was an executive at JPMorgan (JPM).
He’s worth about $1 billion, according to Bloomberg News.
Vivek Ramaswamy
Photo: Craig Hudson for The Washington Post (Getty Images)
Vivek Ramaswamy has been picked by Trump to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) alongside Elon Musk, giving two billionaires a role in making recommendations on how to slash government spending.
In 2007, Ramaswamy became a biotech analyst at the hedge fund QVT Financial, where he stayed until 2014. That year, backed by QVT, he founded Roivant (ROIV), a pharmaceutical company focused on drug development. In 2015, a Roivant spinoff named Axovant went public at a $2.2 billion valuation, although the company’s value sank over the years.
In 2021, Ramaswamy stepped down from Roivant, published a book — “Woke, Inc.” — and started Srive, an “anti-woke” asset management firm backed by billionaires Bill Ackman, Peter Thiel, and Joe Lonsdale. Roivant also went public in 2021 through a deal with a special-purpose acquisition company that valued it at $7.3 billion.
According to Forbes, Ramaswamy is worth about $1 billion, making him the 2,751st richest person on its rankings.
Steve Witkoff
Photo: Adam Gray/Bloomberg (Getty Images)
Real estate magnate Steve Witkoff has been a friend of Trump’s since the early 1990s and the two remain close to this day. Both men are involved in World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency project that advertises a connection to the Trump family, and Witkoff spoke at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally in October.
Witkoff is worth at least $1 billion, according to Forbes, which analyzed his real estate developments. Much of his fortune comes from the Witkoff Group, the New York-based real estate developer he founded in 1997, and he owns homes in Manhattan, the Hamptons, and South Florida.
Trump has tapped Witkoff as his Middle East Envoy, the high-profile post held by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, during his first term.
Jared Isaacman
Photo: Patrick T. Fallon / AFP (Getty Images)
Jared Isaacman, who founded the payments company Shift4 (FOUR) and defense firm Draken International, is Trump’s pick to lead NASA.
Isaacman is a known space enthusiast, conducting a spacewalk earlier this year as part of SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission and chartering the 2022 “Inspiration4" mission. Shift4 processes payments for a number of companies across industries, including casinos and restaurants, and invested $27.5 million in SpaceX in 2021.
According to Forbes, Isaacman is worth about $1.7 billion, making him the 1,915th richest person on its rankings.
Isaacman plans to stay on as Shift4's CEO until he gets confirmed to lead NASA. In a statement earlier this month, he said he plans to retain most of his equity, although he will move to reduce his voting power. Shift4 has said it is “highly dependent” on Isaacman, according to several regulatory filings.
Howard Lutnick
Photo: Al Drago/Bloomberg (Getty Images)
Howard Lutnick, chief executive officer of investment giant Cantor Fitzgerald, has been tapped as Trump’s Commerce Secretary, putting him in charge of leading the next administration’s agenda for trade and tariffs.
The 63-year-old executive, who has helmed Cantor Fitzgerald since 1991, has a long friendship with Trump dating back to the terrorist attacks on 9/11, when 658 Cantor Fitzgerald employees — including Lutnick’s brother — died after planes struck the World Trade Center towers where the firm’s offices were located.
According to Bloomberg News, Lutnick is worth about $2.2 billion thanks to his stake in Cantor and ownership of shares in BCG Group and Newmark Group (NMRK). If confirmed as commerce secretary, he plans to step down from those businesses.
Warren Stephens
Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg (Getty Images)
Warren Stephens, the CEO of the investment bank sharing his last name, is set to be Trump’s ambassador to the United Kingdom if he’s confirmed by the Senate.
Stephens has led Little Rock, Arkansas-based Stephens since 1986 and gained full control in 2006. In 2016, he opposed Trump’s rise, before getting behind and donating more than $3 million to his campaign this year. During Trump’s first re-election campaign, he also donated more than $3 million to support Trump-aligned super PACs.
According to Forbes, Stephens is worth about $3.4 billion, making him the 1,033st richest person on its rankings.
Stephen Feinberg has been tapped by Trump as the deputy defense secretary, making him the No. 2 official at the Pentagon. During the first Trump administration, Feinberg led the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, which oversee the intelligence community.
He’s the co-founder and CEO of Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity firm that began with $10 million in capital and now has $65 billion in assets. Cerberus used to own military contractor DynCorp, a controversial private military contractor that was acquired in 2020 by Amentum and renamed.
Cerberus current portfolio includes companies involved in defense test systems, military aircraft training, vehicle manufacturers, and more. That includes Navistar Defense, which paid a $50 million settlement to resolve allegations it defrauded the U.S. Marines, and defense contractor TransDigm (TDG), which returned $16.1 million in excess profits to the Defense Department in 2019 after being accused of price gouging.
According to Forbes, Feinberg is worth about $5 billion, making him the 648th richest person on its rankings.
Elon Musk
Photo: Taylor Hill (Getty Images)
Elon Musk is — by far — the richest individual on Earth and in Trump’s orbit.
He leads or owns electric vehicle company Tesla (TSLA), aerospace firm SpaceX, artificial intelligence startup xAI, which is intended to compete with OpenAI, brain chip startup Neuralink, tunneling firm The Boring Company, and the social media company X. He also has a nonprofit called The Foundation.
His wealth has surged since the presidential election, with Tesla shares skyrocketing and xAI and SpaceX securing new valuations.
xAI, recently raised $6 billion at a $50 billion valuation less than two years after he founded it. SpaceX is now worth $350 billion, which makes it the most valuable startup in the world, after the company and its investors agreed to buy $1.25 billion of shares from employees and company insiders.
“What’s really crazy about this is that almost no investors wanted to sell shares even at a $350B valuation! SpaceX reduced the amount of shares it bought back from employees in order to allow some new investors in,” Musk wrote last week.
According to Forbes, as of this writing, Musk is worth about $448 billion, making him —by far — the richest person in its rankings. The runners-up are Amazon (AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos ($244 billion), Oracle (ORCL) Chief Technology Officer Larry Ellison ($218 billion), Meta (META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg ($215 billion), and LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault and his family ($169 billion).
Bonus: The Millionaires
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Just because they’re not billionaires doesn’t mean that the rest of Trump’s appointees and nominations aren’t wealthy.
Linda McMahon, Trump’s Education Department nominee, is worth about $850 million thanks to her career and stake in World Wrestling Entertainment, now known as TKO Group (TKO). She also serves on the board of Trump Media & Technology Group Corp, which owns Truth Social.
According to Forbes, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s net worth is about $15 million, including the assets of his wife, the actress Cheryl Hines. Kennedy has been tapped to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
Others include Interior Secretary nominee and former governor of North Dakota Doug Burgum, worth $410 million; Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator nominee Mehmet Oz, worth $330 million; and Energy Secretary nominee Chris Wright, worth $110 million, according to Bloomberg News. Treasury Secretary nominee Scott Bessent, a hedge fund veteran, is worth $500 million.
